#petillo

Check out this custom PETILLO Point body shape made by my Father, Dr. Phil Petillo, in June 1993 (serial number 0644) for our family friend Joe Demko! I did a full restoration on it to bring it back to life. The instrument has many details. The front headstock has a group of colored wood veneer flowers with PETILLO in mother of pearl and the barber strip column is inlaid where the neck meets the body. The back headstock has an abstract mosaic pattern, and inside the soundhole edge is a ladder-step design delicately bent following the shape of the soundhole. Also, the neck laminations of seven layers are made up of German and Austrian maple, French walnut and South American purple heart wood in the center. The soundboard is German silver spruce with Bear-Claw grain, the binding purfling on the top is five layers of white fiber and South American purple heart wood. The Paua abalone rosette with mother of pearl tulip inlays and a Nigerian ebony bridge with inlaid design strips. The end pin jack area has an East Indian rosewood "V" inlay outlined in colored wood veneers high-lighed by the Austrian figured maple grain sides with a tabacco burst. The three piece back is rosewood with a mother of pearl assembled herringbone arrow design with black ebony binding. Check out all the pics!!!

Thanks to The Met Museum for the recommendation to restore this vintage 1939 D'ANGELICO Excel. The original frets were corroded green and dented. I worked hard to remove the corrosion to save the original frets and did our micropolishing process of the frets/fingerboard. The procedure of micropolishing involves the frets being polished from 400 grit sand paper all the way up to 10,000 grit lens paper (which polishes telescope lenses). The entire idea is to make the surface area so glass-like the metal string can resonate a clear true note with intonation clarity. I always use the example of the wine glass filled with liquid and the player rubs the rim…and the friction of that motion makes a note. You can imagine if the rim was rough, it would not be as reflective to carry the note. The fingerboard binding separated and I reglued/filled the area to make it flush again. The tailpiece on the Excel models commonly breaks at the fold at the bottom of the hook in area. To reattach the tailpiece bracket we did a brazing process to heat the pieces back together flush. The amount of heat required for this is enough to turn the brass tailpiece area red hot. The last step to restore the tailpiece is to use acid to blacken/patina it to match the age of the guitar's hardware. The pickguard had a foggy texture to it and I hand buffed it for 2 hours to get it clean and shinny. The sides of the guitar on the upper Low E side bout separated and I reglued/secured the area back into place. The final step was to hand buff the guitar clean of all grime, oiled/rebuilt the tuning keys, set up with 52-11 Petillo copper strings and refit the bridge base flush to the top. This is a priceless instrument and it's always an honor to work on these. My Father Dr. Phil Petillo early on studied with John D'Angelico and after John's passing finished his apprenticeship with John's Godson, Jimmy DeSerio. At our shop we have documented journals, wood and blueprints/fixtures from John's shop. Checkout all the pics!